North East RadioWatch Special: June 28, 1999

The 1998 Trip Revisited

It's been a year, to the day, since the NERW-mobile pulled into a
motel parking lot in Syracuse, ending a nine-day radio trip that began
in Boston and took your editors through Maine, New Brunswick, Prince
Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, New
Brunswick, Maine, New Brunswick, (no, we did not get lost!),
Quebec, Ontario, Quebec, Ontario, and New York.

On the way, we sent out dispatches every other day or so. These
were never collected on the NERW archive page, since I had intended to
compile a more detailed log of the trip...but a year later, that
remained undone. So here are the dispatches presented more-or-less
verbatim, with notes after each day providing some "year later"
retrospective. My 1999 notes will be in brackets; everything else is
as it ran a year ago.

Friday, June 19, 1998

The weather did us no favors, delaying the flight out of Rochester by
nearly two hours. Garrett and I were planning to be on our way out of
Boston by 9:00...but 11:30 ended up being more like it.

Things looked up from there, as we stopped to visit several Friends
of NERW at Portland-area stations. Adam Wolf (ex-WBZ) and Chuck
Bullett gave us a nice tour of the WGAN/WZAN/WMGX/WYNZ facility, and
we got to meet up with Dan Cole, too.

From there it was over to Fuller-Jeffrey land and WHOM, WJBQ, and
WJA--um--E. The delay cost us our chance at meeting R.L. Caron and
J.J. Jeffrey, but we did enjoy a visit with program director Tim
Moore.

Still a few hours behind schedule, we pulled in at Bob Bittner
Broadcast Center North, a.k.a. WJTO Bath, where we had a very nice
visit with Bob, Dan Billings, and Tory Gates, and even had a chance to
tape a "Let's Talk About Radio" while we enjoyed the view.

The fog started rolling in as the NERW-mobile headed north on Route
1, and while it made it impossible for us to see the Rockland
transmitters of WMCM/WRKD and WAVX, we enjoyed our stop at the studios
of the "Classical Wave" and our visit with Jon LaVeen and family.
Commercial classical in Mid-Coast Maine? Ayuh, and it's doing quite
well, it seems.

We saw the studios of WQSS (102.5 Camden) from the outside, and had
a bit of a surprise when we found the WMCM/WRKD studios a few miles
further south than expected on US 1 -- seems they moved from 415 Main
Street earlier this spring.

The last daylight stop was at the former site of WBME (1230) in
Belfast, which seems to be a condo development now.

Heard along the way...not a lot of great DX, although we did pick
up the sign-off of WNTY (990) from Southington, Connecticut at the
improbable hour of 9:40 PM. Maybe it was just coincidence that WNTY,
the flagship station of the New Britain Rock Cats, was signing off
right after the game with the Trenton Thunder...but then we tuned up
the dial to hear an unusually strong signal from WJHR (1040 Flemington
NJ) doing its Thunder post-game show. Hmmm...

On Saturday morning (after we tape some Bangor-area radio...and try
to figure out what's up with WBZN in Old Town; seems the new CHR
outlet is either off the air or inaudible down here in Bar Harbor),
we'll tour the Bar Harbor-Ellsworth area, including a stop at WERU
(89.9 Blue Hill), always a favorite of ours when we're in the
vicinity.

And then we go way down east, through Machias to Calais,
Eastport, and then across the border into Canada, ending up in Saint
John for the night.

We'll see you in Canada tomorrow (where you'll get 1.42 NERWs for the
price of one!)

1999 notes: How fast things change Stateside! The storeroom we saw
at WGAN is being converted into studios for WPOR.

Over at Fuller-Jeffrey, well, it's not Fuller-Jeffrey anymore, or at
least it won't be soon. We wonder whether Citadel will keep the
studios scattered around Portland, or consolidate them into a single
facility.

Bob still owns WJTO; some things never change. I never did find
the roll of film that had the Portland pictures on it, alas.

A bit up the coast, we had no idea when we visited Jon LaVeen that
he was in the process of selling WAVX -- and he couldn't tell us yet.
Well, an independent classical station on the coast was fun while it
lasted, and at least the new WBQX is still classical. The other half
of the simulcast, LMA'd WBYA 101.7, is now simulcasting news-talk WVOM
103.9 Howland.

WBZN was indeed off the air, but had returned the next morning in time
to roll a tape or two.

Saturday, June 20, 1998

Remember when we promised you daily updates from the road? Well,
we tried...but read on for the explanation of why there was no
Saturday update.

Saturday morning dawned cold but clear in Bar Harbor. Setting off
into downtown, we began the radio day with a stop at the studios of
Scott Hogg's WMDI (107.7), located on the second floor of a shopping
arcade. The studio is in a bay window that faces into the arcade, and
the jock on duty was happy to see us and say hello.

From there, it was back up to Ellsworth and the studio sites of
WKSQ/WLKE/WBFB and WDEA/WWMJ/WEZQ. Both had plenty of stickers and we
departed happy.

WDEA's transmitter was next, a two-tower job with guy wires all the
way out in the water. Then it was on to Blue Hill and Blue
Hill-licensed WERU (89.9). After seeing the transmitter on its
eponymous hill, we headed into East Orland and the nifty new studio
building. Thanks to volunteer DJ Kim Mitchell for setting this one
up; we didn't meet him but we had a very friendly visit with the folks
on duty. It's a wonderful facility, complete with three well-equipped
studios, a basement performance space, and a huge record library --
and it's a great station to listen to as well.

We headed Down East next, stopping at the WMDI transmitter (the
road to which was blocked by a fallen tree) and the WLKE transmitter,
then to Machias. We are now prepared to answer some of the confusion
about AM 1400 in Machias: it is not on the air, but the tower
is still standing out behind a garage. Machias' WALZ-FM (95.3)
is on the air, but it's a total relay of WQDY from Calais,
though we're told a local studio is in the process of being built.

Continuing on the road east, we found ourselves in Eastport, home
of the most easterly radio station in the U.S., Shead High School's
WSHD (91.7), which was not, alas, on the air for our visit. Calais'
WQDY (1230/92.7) certainly was on the air, and we had a very nice
visit with Tom McLaughlin, who wears many hats -- WQDY news director,
oldies show host, WSHD advisor, and alumnus of WTBS/WMBR in Cambridge
(where he went by the name "Firedog.") Proof of the power of NERW --
he knew who we were when we showed up unannounced. And since we now
know NERW shows up on the WQDY bulletin board, we'll mention that it
was wonderful to see a station with so much local emphasis and so
little satellite programming.

And from there it was across the bridge into Canada, where our
first stop was at CBAO (990), the CBC's low-power relay transmitter in
St. Stephen. We didn't know what to expect, so it was a pleasant
surprise to drive up to the site the GPS receiver pinpointed -- and
find a longwire strung between two telephone poles, at an NBTel
maintenance depot!

With darkness setting in, we pushed on to Saint John, stopping at
the transmitter sites of the late CHSJ (700) and the still-living CFBC
(930) before heading into town.

The less said about Saturday night's lodgings the better; suffice
it to say the rule for future NERW trips is, "Name brand hotels,
only."

At least there was a cable hookup; we were able to plug in and
watch some of the programming from CBC's CBAT (Channel 4), ATV/CTV's
CKLT (Channel 9), and Global's CIHF (Channel 12) before drifting off
to sleep -- but not before noticing that CHSJ's new FM outlet on 94.1
had signed off for the evening.

We really did enjoy ourselves at WQDY -- a very friendly bunch of
people and a nifty little small-town station. The other station in
town was brand-new when we visited. WCRQ (102.9 Dennysville) was and
is mostly automated, with a killer signal well into New Brunswick.

As for the hotel in Saint John, it really was a pit. Should you be
headed that way, contact the editors first and we'll tell you where
not to stay. One more note on the cable hookup,
though: in Saint John and for much of the rest of the Maritimes
portion of the trip, we watched the Fox station from back home in
Rochester, WUHF, on cable. Bangor's WLBZ was the NBC affiliate, with
Detroit and Toledo providing ABC and CBS.

Sunday, June 21, 1998

Sunday morning started with a round of airchecking, which was
dampened somewhat by the realization that half the stations in Saint
John were running religion on Sunday mornings.

Leaving the hotel, we stopped for breakfast with NERW reader Alan Lamb
(thanks for the donuts!), and a trip around Saint John's studio
facilities. It seems CFBC (930) and CJYC (98.9) have moved out of the
Fundy building on Chesley Drive; through the window there we could see
a room with studio furniture, an inflatable shark, but no radio
equipment. We're told CFBC and CJYC have moved in on Union Street
with CIOK (100.5). CFBC was having a bad day; much of their morning
was filled with the sound of the transmitter going on and off the air
and miscellaneous buzzing and strange noises. The jock must have been
on a hard drive; there was no mention of the technical problems after
the station came back on the air mid-song.

We tried, and failed abysmally, to get to the Saint John TV/FM site
on Mount Champlain. We did succeed in finding the listed location of
CJYC's transmitter above Rockwood Park, but there were no FM bays to
be seen.

A brief stop yielded the transmitter site of Saint John's CBAFT
(CBC French TV) relay, which was inexplicably located far northeast of
the city -- perhaps a spacing issue with co-channel WABI-TV (Channel
5) down in Bangor?

So it was off to Sussex we went, where we spent more than an hour
driving in circles in search of CJCW (590), which proved to be nothing
more than a relay of oldies station CKCW (1220) from Moncton, which at
least had the good graces to do a double-legal ID for both stations.

Regaining our senses of direction, we plowed on to the Moncton
area, where we promptly got lost again on some mountainous dirt roads
until finally finding the transmitters of Moncton's TV and FM
stations, including the CBAT relay on Channel 7 (co-located with
CIHF/Global on 27), the CHMO (103.1) tower, and the tall beast that
carries CKCW-TV (Channel 2, CTV/ATV) and CHQM (103.9).

We made it down from the mountain just as the needle on the gas
tank hit the bottom of the "E," but we found an Irving station just in
time (it's not a difficult task in New Brunswick!) and gassed up for
the drive to Prince Edward Island.

As most of you (well, the roadgeeks among you, anyway) know, the
ferry to PEI has been replaced by a bridge, and what a bridge it is.
In between glimpses of the scenery on the eight-mile crossing, we had
plenty of time to play with the radio. AM reception in mid-span is
incredible; we think we heard the 870 from Newfoundland, we know we
heard WBZ, and CHNC (610) from New-Carlisle, Quebec was like a local.
WBZ disappeared once we were off the bridge and on land, but CHNC
might as well be Radio-Media's local affiliate for PEI, considering
the strength of the signal.

Our first stop in PEI was in Summerside, at CJRW (1240), a little
country outlet with a big signal that we heard across most of the
drive from Moncton. We made the required tourism stop at the House of
Green Gables in Cavendish, where we noted that the national park
TISes, CBPP-1 (1280) and CBPP (1490) were not on the air.

From there it was back to Charlottetown and the transmitter sites
of CFCY (630) and CHTN (720), a yummy dinner of seafood and steaks,
and a hotel we could actually enjoy for the evening.

On Monday, we'll head back off-island, with scheduled stops at CKDH
(900) in Amherst, Nova Scotia, along with the Radio Canada
International site in Sackville and a visit with the CBC/SRC folks in
Moncton before spending a night in Fredericton. We'll check in
tomorrow night from Fredericton...and we'll also share some closing
thoughts about the state of radio and TV in the Maritimes.

There's not much to add to the descriptions here, but this is as good
a point as any to offer a market listing for the first few spots we
visited, starting with Saint John:

930 CFBC (Saint John) oldies, except when they had dead air!

91.3 CBD (Saint John) CBC Radio One

94.1 CHSJ (Saint John) country

98.9 CJYC (Saint John) AC "C98" (co-owned with CFBC and CIOK)

100.5 CIOK (Saint John) rock "K100"

101.5 CBZ-FM (Fredericton) CBC Radio Two

102.3 CBAF-FM-1 (Fredericton) Radio-Canada

Interesting to note that the "Fredericton" FMs come from the same
Mount Champlain site as Saint John's CHSJ-FM and CIOK and serve both
cities equally well...but more on that in a bit. First, the Moncton
market:

590 CJCW (Sussex) was oldies then, has changed to country since, //CKCW

1070 CBA (Moncton) CBC Radio One

1220 CKCW (Moncton) was oldies then, has changed to country since

88.5 CBAF-FM (Moncton) Radio-Canada

89.5 CJSE (Shediac) French community radio

93.5 CKUM (Moncton) French university radio

95.5 CBA-FM (Moncton) CBC Radio Two

98.3 CBAL (Moncton) Radio-Canada chaîne culturelle

103.1 CJMO (Moncton) rock "C103"

103.9 CFQM (Moncton) was country then, oldies now

106.9 CHMA (Sackville) university radio

And from there, on to radio in PEI:

630 CFCY (Charlottetown) country

720 CHTN (Charlottetown) oldies

1240 CJRW (Summerside) country, has applied to move to 102.1 FM since

88.1 CBAF-FM-15 (Charlottetown) Radio-Canada

93.1 CHLQ (Charlottetown) AC "Magic 93", co-owned with CFCY and CHTN

96.1 CBCT (Charlottetown) CBC Radio One

104.7 CBCH (Charlottetown) CBC Radio Two

Up around Summerside one can hear Moncton FM as well; down near
Charlottetown it's much harder -- but Nova Scotia signals like CKTO
100.9 Truro and 25-kilowatt CKEC 1320 New Glasgow are nearly local.

While driving, we also logged many CBC FMs from Nova Scotia,
including the 89.5 New Glasgow, 106.7 Mulgrave, 90.1 Bay St. Lawrence,
and a hint of 90.5 and others from Halifax, too.

Monday, June 22, 1998

Hello from the luxurious Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, where the
NERW Northeast Radio Expedition is wrapping up day six! It's been a
few days since we've posted an update from the road; here's what we've
been up to:

When we left off, we were in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island,
where we started Monday morning with a drive around the island. In
addition to listening to the local stations, we found a nice little FM
opening, which yielded catches such as WKIX (96.9) Goldsboro, N.C. and
WLGI (90.9) Hemingway, S.C. The latter is -- we kid you not -- an
all-Baha'i radio station. The experience of driving around eastern
Prince Edward Island whilst listening to a Baha'i radio station from
South Carolina is an incredible one, to be sure. Not for the faint of
heart!

From there it was over the bridge (sadly, for we liked PEI a lot
and hope to return someday) and back to the mainland -- which started
with a brief excursion to Amherst, Nova Scotia, partly so we could say
we'd been in Nova Scotia and partly to visit CKDH (900) there. We did
both, had lunch, and headed back up the Trans-Canada Highway to
Sackville, New Brunswick and Radio Canada International.

The RCI site is someplace every radio nut should visit someday.
Upon our arrival, we were greeted by a friendly employee who promptly
fetched an engineer, who gave us an extensive tour of every nook and
cranny of the building. It's a wonderfully well-maintained site, and
we're relieved to hear that funding for RCI seems to have stabilized
of late. They really do enjoy having visitors, and asked us to
encourage all of you to go visit, so: go visit. You won't be sorry.

After RCI it was on to Moncton, where we headed for the CBA (1070)
transmitter (which was itself at Sackville until about 1970). On the
way there, our attention was grabbed by a building on the side of the
road with a big green sign reading "CBAF 1300 kc Radio-Canada." Yep,
that's right: the former CBAF AM site. The towers are long gone, but
the building, tower bases, and STL tower remain. After gawking at
that, we drove to the very tall 1070 tower, then into town for a
studio visit.

The CBC complex in Moncton is really the Radio-Canada complex,
since almost everything that's produced there is for the
French-language services. We saw both sides of the building,
including the nifty new digital control room being built for CBA's
Information Morning program.

We also saw Moncton's other studio buildings, as well as the
transmitter site of CKCW (1220), and then hit the road for
Fredericton, where we spent the night.

I realize now, in looking back on my visit to RCI, that it must have
been designed by the same architect who did the CBL site in Hornby,
near Toronto, since both feature similar "visitor's galleries"
overlooking the transmitter rooms. RCI is much bigger, of course, and
has the slight advantage of still being on the air. More defunct CBC
transmitter facilities are yet to come, though...

Tuesday, June 23, 1998

Tuesday morning started on a bad note -- a nail in the tire of the
NERW-mobile prompted a visit to the local tire place, where we had to
wait for a bit while the damage was repaired.

Back on the road, it was a whirlwind tour of Fredericton's
stations, including the inexplicable CIHI (1260) -- a station whose
pattern nulls to the south, yet is located north of town. As a
result, "C-hi" is heard on two FM repeaters as well.

Fredericton's lone local French-language station, CJPN (90.5), was
found in the local French community centre, and we found CBZ not far
away.

We also stopped by the studios of the commercial stations, CIHI,
CKHJ (105.3), and CIBX (106.9). CIBX is the former CFNB (550), but
all that remains of CFNB is some old equipment in a display case in
the studio lobby. As for bumper stickers, "the guy who has them is
out right now."

And then it was on to the border, with a stop at the old CFNB site,
which still stands, complete with the huge "CFNB" calls on the
building south of town.

Crossing the border at St. Stephen/Calais, we headed to the
Meddybemps, Maine transmitter site of WMED-FM/TV (89.7/13) and the new
WCRQ (102.9). It wasn't as tall as we had expected, but was easily
accessible and had call letters on the door, so we'll settle.

Trying to continue our complete trip of U.S. 1, we headed north
through Danforth and not much else before reaching Houlton, where we
listened to WHOU (100.1), which was live and local, then went back
into New Brunswick to see the site of CJCJ (920) in Woodstock. The
border guard at the I-95 crossing in Houlton was amused to learn that
we'd only been in Canada for twenty minutes or so -- so much so that
he started laughing and let us right through.

There was no sign of the old WHGS (1340), so we drove north to
Monticello, where we stopped at the transmitter of WREM (710). Owner
Al Weiner has filled the land next door to the station with all manner
of antiquated broadcast equipment and other machinery. No sign yet of
Weiner's shortwave station, which will be built next door.

We drove past Mars Hill, site of WMEM (106.1/10) and WQHR (96.1),
and then up to Presque Isle for a very pleasant visit with Andy Soule
at the cramped but functional building that's home to WQHR, WBPW
(96.9), and WOZI (101.7). We also saw the WEGP (1390) site south of
town, the college station, WUPI (92.1), which was not on the air, and
of course WAGM-TV (Channel 8), complete with the "CBS-NBC-ABC" sign
out front (though almost everything seems to be CBS these days).
There was little local programming to be heard -- WQHR and WBPW are
local in morning drive, WCXU (97.7 Caribou) and WCXX (102.3 Madawaska)
are local for much of the day, and everyone else is on the bird.

In Caribou, we saw the brick building that houses religious WFST
(600), but there was nobody home, so we headed north to a cabin in
Madawaska for the night, where we watched the WAGM newscast before
settling in. News in market number 201...need we say more?

We'll start off with the market list for Fredericton, which looks
like this:

920 CJCJ (Woodstock) country and AC "CJ Radio"

970 CBZ (Fredericton) CBC Radio One

1260 CIHI (Fredericton) CHR "C-hi"

90.5 CJPN (Fredericton) French community radio, part // CITE Montreal

95.5 CIHI-FM-1 (New Maryland) // CIHI

97.9 CHSR (Fredericton) university radio

101.5 CBZ-FM (Fredericton) CBC Radio Two

102.3 CBAF-FM-1 (Fredericton) Radio-Canada

103.5 CIHI-FM-2 (Oromocto) // CIHI

105.3 CKHJ (Fredericton) country "KHJ"

106.9 CIBX (Fredericton) AC "Capital Radio"

Fredericton can also hear most of the Saint John FMs, except the
98.9, which is closer to Saint John than the rest. On our morning
there, we also had what was probably trop-enhanced reception of
Moncton FM, CKLE 92.9 Bathurst (simulcasting CJVA 810 Caraquet, from
the French-speaking northern part of the province we didn't have time
to visit), and WQHR from Presque Isle, too.

A note here, as well, about what's on TV in the Maritimes: it's
almost all networked out of Halifax. The ATV network is now owned by
the national CTV network, and programs its local news out of its
Halifax station, with newsrooms in Saint John, Moncton, Charlottetown,
and possibly Sydney as well contributing items to the regional
newscasts. The newly-national Global network had recently taken over
the "MITV" independent network that broadcasts from CIHF transmitters
in Saint John-Fredericton, Moncton, Charlottetown, and several Nova
Scotia sites. We saw a small Global newsroom in Moncton, but
programming for this service also originates in Halifax for the most
part. The CBC does province-wide 6 PM newscasts on weekdays for New
Brunswick (originating from Fredericton with bureaux in several other
cities), Nova Scotia (Halifax), and PEI (Charlottetown), with a single
regional newscast at 11:30 from Halifax and national news only on
weekends. On the French side, Radio-Canada's regional 6 PM news is
broadcast from Moncton to all three provinces via CBAFT transmitters;
other programming comes from Montreal. TVA and TQS programming is
available on cable from Montreal as well.

One more development: CJCJ was recently granted a construction
permit for a new FM transmitter a bit to the north, in Grand Falls.

Across the border, there have been a few changes since our visit to
Presque Isle and Monticello. Allan Weiner put shortwave WBCQ on the
air last fall, with a very solid signal this way. WOZI moved to
101.9, and moved transmitter facilities up to Mars Hill at the same
time. Also moving to Mars Hill is WAGM-TV, which could return it to
the TV dial in Fredericton, where Toledo's WTOL is the CBS affiliate
of choice -- or at least was, as we hear Detroit's WWJ-TV has replaced
WTOL on the Canadian satellite system. But then, Fundy Cable just
asked for permission to put WBZ on in place of WTOL, so who knows?

Wednesday, June 24, 1998

On Wednesday morning, we began by heading for the end of the road
-- or at least the end of U.S. 1 in Fort Kent. After taking the
obligatory photos, it was off to WUFK (92.1), which was not on the
air, and Maine Public Radio's WMEF (106.5), the most northerly station
in New England, which was on. There was no sign of the tower of the
now-deleted WLVC (1340).

Returning to Madawaska, we admired the view of the St. John River
valley from the WCXX site before heading across to Edmundston, New
Brunswick.

Driving up on Tuesday, we had noted that Edmundston's CJEM (570)
had turned on its FM transmitter on 92.7. Imagine our surprise when,
upon stopping by CJEM, the station manager told us Tuesday afternoon
had been the very first time the FM had been on the air. A moment of
history...and your NERW team was there for it! The CJEM-FM signal is
quite impressive, covering all the way down to Presque Isle. We saw
the AM site, which will go dark in about two months.

From there, it was across the border into Quebec, where we heard
the station in Degelis, CFVD (95.5), and saw from a distance the FM
and TV transmitters for Rivière-du-Loup before heading into the
town to see their studios.

Then we began heading south, where after an unsuccessful attempt to
find the studios of CHOX (97.5) in La Pocatière, we drove to Quebec
City.

The two remaining AM stations, CHRC (800) and CBV (980), are both
south of town. CBV has only a few months remaining on AM; its FM on
106.3 is on the air already.

The day's last stop was at the Ile d'Orléans site of CBVT
(Channel 11), a tall tower festooned with no fewer than 20 FM bays --
10 for CBV-FM (95.3), 10 for CBVE (104.7), and neither in use since
both stations moved a while back.

And from there it was into the Old City, a wonderful dinner of
pasta and seafood, and back to the hotel.

Next stops: Montreal on Thursday, Ottawa on Friday, and home! We'll
try to check in at least once more, and then we'll have a complete
report next week.

We haven't heard much about CJEM since then, but one would have to
assume the AM is long since defunct.

The CBC situation in Edmundston is a bit strange, since CBAM on
1320 is a very low-power relay transmitter that barely covers the
city, while big-coverage CBZC on 103.3 in Bon Accord serves the
surrounding area much better. It probably matters very little, since
Edmundston is a Francophone city and CBC listenership likely hovers
near zero. We'll note here that the CBC TV signal on channel 6 from
Bon Accord is the English-language service for all of northern Maine
and northwest New Brunswick.

For some reason, I omitted one stop on the drive up to
Rivière-du-Loup: we just had to take a picture of the sign
announcing the small village of St.-Louis-du-Ha-Ha. We still don't
know why they called it that.

Rivière-du-Loup's dial looks like this:

89.5 CJBR-1 (R-d-L) Radio-Canada // CJBR 900 Rimouski

95.5 CFVD (Dégelis) French AC

103.7 CJFP (R-d-L) French hot AC

107.1 CIBM (R-d-L) French AC

Many of the stations listed in the vicinity no longer exist, like the
98.3 and 102.7 in Cabano and the 105.1 in La Pocatière. I suspect
these were relays of low-powered AM stations that have since been
replaced by higher-powered FMs (like the 95.5, ex-1370, in Dégelis).

What we didn't realize yet was how Rivière-du-Loup was one
of the few Quebec cities not to have been taken over by the
Radiomédia networks. CJFP and CIBM remain locally-programmed,
albeit under common ownership. Also of note here: no Radio-Canada
second service, and no English radio to be heard at all, the only spot
where this proved true.

Thursday, June 25, 1998

Welcome to the last update in our "NERW On The Road" series. It's
been a long trip from Boston to Prince Edward Island and then back
west; here's how we spent the last two days.

Thursday morning found us leaving Quebec City with a trip around
town to the various stations' studios. One thing that was immediately
apparent is how the Radio-Média group has homogenized its
station lineup across Quebec; we found CHIK (98.9) using the same logo
and "Energie" format as Montreal's CKMF, and CITF (107.5) sharing the
"Rock-Detente" format with CITE in Montreal and several others across
the province. On the AM side, the old CJRP (1060) and CKCV (1280) are
gone; the only remaining commercial one is CHRC (800), which uses the
same news-talk format and network programs as CKAC (730) in Montreal.

Walking around Place d'Youville, we found the small office that
houses CBVE (104.7), Quebec City's lone English-language station.
CBVE produces its own morning and afternoon drive programs, which are
fed to the rest of the CBC English network in Quebec outside Montreal
as the "Quebec Community Network."

We drove by the avenue Myrand studios of CFCM (Channel 4), which
are also nominally the studios of CKMI, Global's Quebec City
affiliate, which was created by taking the license of Channel 5, once
a private English CBC affiliate, and moving it to 20 (and more
importantly, adding relays to reach the English-speaking viewers in
Montreal on 46 and Sherbrooke on 11). Channel 5 is now CBVE-TV, a
straight relay of CBMT in Montreal. Its transmitter remains on the
self-supporting tower that also has CFCM.

From there it was up the mountain to see the rest of Quebec City's
TV and FM transmitters -- a most impressive drive with a nice cluster
of towers up top carrying most of the FMs, and a smaller tower down
the hill holding CHOI (98.1).

One more Quebec City note: there are plenty of billboards around
town advertising CBV's move from 980 to 106.3. The former CBV-FM on
95.3 is now identifying as CBVX.

Leaving Quebec City behind, it was off to Trois-Rivières,
where it began to rain. We waited out the rain over lunch, then
headed up to Shawinigan to see the tower that carries
Trois-Rivières' FMs and TVs. It's a monster -- well over a
thousand feet tall with an impressive encrustation of TV and FM bays.

We saw the Trois-Rivières TV studios as well; one for TVA
affiliate CHEM (Channel 8), the other for Radio-Canada affiliate CKTM
(Channel 13) and Quatre-Saisons outlet CFKM (Channel 16). And when we
hit the radio studios, sure enough, Radio-Média had struck
again: "Energie" on CIGB (102.3), "Rock-Détente" on CHEY
(94.7), and news-talk on CHLN (550), with a simulcast in Shawinigan on
CKSM (1220).

Crossing over the St. Lawrence River, we stopped at the former site
of CJTR (1140), where one tower remains standing, then to the CHLN
site and onwards towards Montreal under cloudy skies.

Our first stop on Montreal's South Shore was in Brossard, where a
short walk took us to the transmitter of CBF (690) and CBM (940), at
least for the moment. Both stations have added FM service, CBF on
95.1 and CBME on 88.5 (with a miserably bad signal, we might note),
and the clock is ticking on the AMs.

We also stopped by the former site of CFMB 1410, which left the air
a few years back when the multi-lingual station took over CJMS' old
1280 facility. 1410 was reactivated earlier this year as a temporary
home for CJAD, which lost its own 800 kHz facility to the ice storm.
More on that in a moment...

From there it was over the bridge, into the city, and dinner along the
streets of the Old City.

We should have stayed longer in Quebec City, if only to soak up more
of the history. I hope to go back sometime soon.

When I do, CBV will be long gone from 980 -- it signed off from AM
a few months after our visit. Little else has changed in Quebec since
then, but a few more notes need to be made here:

It's interesting that the CBVE/Quebec Community Network studios
aren't even in the same building as the French-language Radio-Canada
facilities in Quebec. A sign, no doubt, of the linguistic tension
that persists in la belle province?

In addition to the stations mentioned above, there's a vibrant FM
dial in Quebec City, including university and community radio from
CKRL 89.1 at Université du Quebec, CHYZ 94.3 at
Université Laval (recently granted a power increase), and CKIA
96.1, a community station in the Basse-Ville section of Quebec.
There's a religious station, CION 90.9, that we didn't hear, and
several suburban stations that converted from AM to FM and now serve
Quebec itself, most notably CFOM Levis, which seems to have combined
the old CFOM 1340 and CFLS 920.

As for Montreal, CBF and CBM are history now, and we'd best get
back there soon to see the CKVL 850 site before that station moves to
the old CBF 690 frequency. But we digress...

Friday, June 26, 1998

On Friday, we started off back on the South Shore, beginning with
CFMB's current towers, a six-tower inline array. As the rains set in
again, we drove further south to CJAD, where we were greeted with a
pleasant surprise. The transmitter plant supervisor, who lives next
door, saw us taking pictures in the fog and invited us in to see the
old Continental transmitter and the even older Continental backup. He
then pulled out the photo album so we could see the damage that kept
800 off the air for almost six months. The site itself was without
power for more than three weeks.

From CJAD it was off to CKGM's seven-tower array on 990, which
switched a few weeks ago from being an interim home to CJAD to running
mostly-automated oldies. Then we looked for CHAI (101.9) in
Châteaugay, only to find the GPS receiver pointing us towards --
a church?!?!? Indeed, there were two FM bays crowning the steeple.
Now we've seen everything.

Well, almost everything -- we kept driving north, passing the four
towers of CIQC (600) and pulling into the Kahnawake Indian reservation
for a look at CKRK (103.7), the very professional-sounding station
that serves the South Shore and West Island as "K103" or "The Monster
on the Seaway," or "103 dot 7", or, sometimes, "Mohawk Radio." We saw
the tower next to the reservation's sports center, but couldn't find
the studios, and went back into the city to see some downtown studios.

Those included the Télé-Québec facility on rue
Fullum; the huge Maison Radio-Canada on
blvd. Réné-Levesque (alas, we weren't able to get a
tour) that is the headquarters for the CBC's French-language radio and
TV operations; the TVA headquarters on ave. de Maisonneuve, and the
CFCF/Quatre-Saisons monolith on ave. Ogilvy. We also took the
mandatory drive up Mount Royal to see the massive antenna covered with
TV and FM bays that's home to nearly every station in town. If the
weather had been better, we'd have walked up to get a closer look, but
unfortunately the rain kept us away.

Then it was time for lunch and the drive out of town, this time
heading north and west towards the CKAC (730) two-tower array in
Pointe-Calumet and the other native station in the Montreal area, CKHQ
(101.7) in Kahnesetake. Unfortunately, CKHQ wasn't on the air, and on
101.7 we heard WCVT in Stowe, Vermont and CJSO in Sorel instead. The
GPS led us to a house that was supposed to be the CKHQ transmitter
site, but it sure didn't look like much, so we pressed on towards
Hawkesbury.

Crossing the river, we tuned into a nifty little two-province
simulcast, CJLA (104.9) Lachute, Quebec and CHPR (102.1) Hawkesbury,
Ontario. The CHPR transmitter appears to be on one of the stubs from
the old CHPR(AM) on 1110 south of town. At Garrett's insistence
("We've gotta see what this looks like!"), we also turned off Highway
34 to see CICO-TV-96 (Channel 48) and CHLF-TV-2 (Channel 39), which
both rebroadcast TVOntario programming, the former in English and the
latter in French, a rarity since most viewers get TVO's French service
only on cable. That's changing, apparently, as TVO puts up more
French transmitters in Francophone areas of the province.

From there it was down Highway 417 and into Ottawa for dinner and a
night at the historic Chateau Laurier (hey, we hunt towers in style!).
One thing missing from the airwaves: there was no sign of the CFDT
tourist-information stations on 96.5 and 99.9 that are supposed to be
along 417 heading into the city from either direction.

In our final update later in the weekend: visiting the Ottawa
transmitters and studios, Smiths Falls, Brockville, back over the
border and, at long last, home. And sometime next week, once we've
caught up, we'll update all of you on the news of the last nine days.
Has WBZ been bought by Salem and will it become all-religion? We've
been on the road so long, we'd have no idea! We can't wait to see
what we've missed...

Not that much, as it turned out -- but you can look in the NERW
archives for that.

A note here on TV in Quebec: it, too, is heavily networked around
the province. Radio-Canada appears to produce a local suppertime
newscast for Montreal and one for the rest of the province from
Québec, and other than that and the sign-off slate, it's the
same diet of programming on all the R-C owned transmitters. But our
hotel room in Montreal offered a magnificent view to the south towards
Sherbrooke, allowing us to see programming from CKSH-TV 9, one of
several privately-owned R-C affiliates. CKSH had its own promos and
presumably its own suppertime news as well, but the programming was
still fed from Montreal otherwise. TVA, the original private
commercial network, is entirely a network slate of programs with some
local IDs and spots, and apparently one local newscast a day. In some
markets, Sherbrooke again being one of them (via CHLT-TV 7), the same
private company owns both the TVA and R-C stations. In others, like
Trois-Riviéres, the same company owns affiliates of R-C and
TQS, the other commercial network. The public provincial network,
Télé-Québec, feeds the exact same programming to
all its transmitters, it seems. In English, all programming
originates in Montreal, with CBC, CTV (via CFCF-TV), and Global all
maintaining a presence locally, and CBC and Global maintaining
transmitters elsewhere in the province as well. U.S. network
programming originates in the Burlington-Plattsburgh market and
appears to be fed by microwave from Montreal at least as far up as
Québec.

And that TVO/TFO transmitter in Hawkesbury? It looked like a
heavily-loaded paging/cellular/etc. tower with a few small UHF
antennas attached...

Saturday, June 27, 1998

So here's how the Great Radio Trip of '98 wound down...

Saturday morning began with a distinctly non-radio event, as your
editor indulged another hobby interest with a tour of the Royal
Canadian Mint in Ottawa.

Returning to form, we walked over to the York Street studios of
CHEZ (106.1) for a guided tour from production guru Craig Jackman.
CHEZ just recently moved into its new digs in a converted grocery
warehouse, and it's a really nice place, largely arranged in an open
plan (no walls around the newsroom or engineering areas, for
instance). A stop at a used bookstore around the corner also turned
up some Canadian gems for the NERW bookshelf, including books by CBC
stars Barbara Frum and Knowlton Nash.

After lunch, it was back on the road, stopping at studio locations
on the Quebec side in Hull (CIMF and CHOT/CFGS in the same industrial
park) and Gatineau (CKTF, which now shares space with CJRC in a
building adjacent to the big shopping mall there).

Recrossing the river, we passed several more studios, including the
CBC's TV operations in a residential neighborhood on Lanark Avenue and
the CJOH/CKQB complex on Merivale Road, before turning south at day's
end.

Time allowed us only a handful of additional stops: a failed
attempt to get close to the CJRC (1150) transmitter, a stop at the
CFRA (580) array on Highway 16 south of the city, and then the long
drive down the 401, over the Thousand Islands Bridge, and into
Watertown, where we made the last stop at public TV WNPE (Channel 16)
on Arsenal Street.

And from there it was dinner and another hour or so south to
Syracuse, where our long journey came to a close some three thousand
miles from its start.

A return to Ottawa is also in order, since much has changed in the
last year. Rogers ponied up C$15 million in September to buy CHEZ and
Smiths Falls sister stations CFMO/CJET to add to its existing CIWW and
CKBY in Ottawa, with the latter stations due to move into that nifty
CHEZ studio eventually. CJBZ on 1200 dropped its CHR format for
sports last fall, as we'd known it was planning to do -- but it also
went back to its old CFGO calls, which we didn't expect. Rawlco is
selling CFGO and sister FM CJMJ ("Majic 100") to the CHUM group, which
already owns news-talk CFRA 580, CHR CKKL 93.9, and "The New RO,"
independent TV station CHRO.

Which reminds us to point out that the Ottawa-Hull market has more
TV stations than anywhere else in the country, with just about every
network represented, both English and French. Top to bottom:

4 CBOT (CBC)

6 CIII-TV-6 (Global)

9 CBOFT (Radio-Canada)

11 CHCH-TV-1 (OnTV)

13 CJOH (CTV)

24 CICO-TV-24 (TVOntario)

30 CIVO (Télé-Québec)

40 CHOT (TVA)

43 CHRO-TV-1 ("New RO" independent, // CHRO 5 Pembroke)

49 CFGS (TQS)

60 CFMT-TV-2 (Toronto multi-lingual)

65 CITY-TV-3 (Toronto independent)

In short, there's almost nothing you can't see in Ottawa, except
the CTS religious TV service from Hamilton (which will probably be on
cable soon), TFO (which is available on cable), and a handful of
independent and provincial public networks from western Canada.
U.S. TV signals come from Rochester, which is an arrangement that
dates back to the early days of Canadian cable when the Rochester
signals were picked up over the air at Belleville and microwaved up to
Ottawa. The only exceptions here are Fox, which comes by satellite
from WUTV Buffalo, and PBS, which comes from Watertown.

That Watertown station changed calls after our visit, becoming
WPBS-TV in September. Very clever!

And we'll once again leave off in Watertown, which was the very
next stop a few weeks later, as we headed back up to finish seeing the
sights and the sites. That, however, is a story for another day.

Eventually I'll finish compiling all the tapes from the trips and
put an ID compilation on the site somewhere...but for now, I hope
you've enjoyed the trip back a year. We'll be back with our regular
NERW on Friday!